Children’s Literature Evaluation Form

Your Name: Joselin Guillen

Book Title: Don’t let pigeon drive the bus
Author: Mo Willems
Genre: Fiction
Illustrator: Mo Willems
Publisher/Year: 2003
Evaluate the Book for the following elements
Style and Language: Using examples for the book, explain the following: Word
choices, dialogue, rhythm, rhyme and sentence length. Share unexpected insights or
interesting information the reader learns from this story. (5 points)
The words that the author used for this book are so simple and I love that the author
made this book to be able to participate, and that the pigeon talk with the class. For
example: the pigeon all the time try to convince the class to be able to drive the buss

Character: With examples from the book, provide the following- (5 points)
Who is the main character?
How can the reader relate to the character?
Who are the supporting characters?
1)The main character of this story is the pigeon.
2)I think the reader or the class can relate with the pigeon on how he try to convince
them to drive the bus, by this I mean that children also try to convince their parents
to do something that they don’t supposed to.
3) In this case, the ones who are supporting the character is the class or the reader.

Plot: Summarize the major events of the story (6 points)

The major events of the story is that the pigeon want’s to drive the bus, but the class
also needs to tell him that he can’t, and also they need to participate and tell us the
reason why he can’t drive the bus.
Setting: Explain the place and time of this book. (2 points)
Theme: What is the main message of this book? (2 points)
Setting: I believe that there is not a time or place in the book, because it doesn’t show
us like a park or anything else, but the child can imagen that it is in a park or in a
parking lot.
Theme: The main message of this book is that the reader need to understand that if
someone tells you to don’t do something you need to understand that they don’t
need to it. Also that they need to understand the they don’t need to get along with
someone that is a bad influence.

Illustration: Analyze the book you selected with the following categories
Style (realism, surrealism, expressionism, impressionism, naïve, cartoon art)? (2
points)
Style: Cartoon Art

Media Choice (paints, oils watercolors, pencils, pen, charcoal, crayons, acrylic, chalk):
(2 points)

Media Choice: Pencil

Give examples of describe how the following visual elements are used in the
illustrations: (3)
Line: bus, driver head, driver body and pigeon body
Shapes: lines and circle, and squares
Color: pastel colors
Texture: soft
Page design (placement of the illustrations, use of borders, white and dark space and
all pages the same or different). (3)
The color of the pages change, but they maintain a soft pastel color on the back.

Child Development Theory: Choose either Piaget, Erickson or Social Emotional to

describe the connection to the book Chose 1 only (5 points)
Piaget:
Name the stage_____________________ and the age_______________________
Explain the cognitive development from this stage and provide an example from the
book to support your choice:

Erickson:
Name the stage: Trust and Mistrust and the age Infancy
Explain the cognitive development from this stage and provide an example from the
book to support your choice:
On this stage parents and primary caregivers control the environment and social
influences. Infants receive a positive care with their needs met, will think of the world
safe and dependable to learn trust.
An example of the book: on this book the child can learn that the pigeon is not a trust
“person”.

Emotional Development:
Identify the age: _________________________
Explain the social development for this age and how the book relates
to the emotional level you chose:

1 would not recommend 2 average 3 highly recommended

Your rating of the book: 3

Why?
I believe that the pigeon series are good for infants to recognize between good and
bad, they can recognize what is good to do and what it is not.